The name of a country and its people (Maddā). In the Kusa Jātaka (q.v.), Kusa, son of Okkāka, king of Kusāvatī in the Malla country, is mentioned as having married Pabhāvatī, daughter of the king of Madda, and the capital of the Madda king was Sāgala (J.v.283 ff; Kusāvati was one hundred leagues from Sāgala (J.v.290), cp. Mtu.ii.441 f).

In the similar story of Anitthigandha, a prince of Bārāṇasī contracts a marriage with a daughter of the king of Sāgala — his name being Maddava; but the girl dies on the way to her husband. (SNA.i.68 f; cp. DhA.iii.281, about the other Anitthigandha of Sāvatthi of the Buddha’s days, who also married a Madda princess).

The Chaddanta Jātaka also mentions a matrimonial alliance between the royal houses of Bārāṇasī and Sāgala, while in the Kāliṅgabodhi Jātaka (J.iv.230 f ) the Madda king’s daughter marries a prince of Kāliṅga while both are in exile.

J.v.39 f; so also in the Mūgapakkha Jātaka (J.vi.1), the wife of the Kāsi king was the daughter of the king of Madda, Candadevi by name; while Phusatī, wife of Sañjaya of Jetuttara in the Sivi kingdom and mother of Vessantara, was also a Madda princess (J.vi.480); likewise Maddī, wife of Vessantara.

Cūḷani, son of Talatā, also married a princess of Madda (J.vi.471). According to the Mahāvaṃsa (Mhv.viii.7; this probably refers to Madras and not to the Madda country, whose capital was Sāgala), Sumitta, son of Sīhabāhu and king of Sīhapura, married the daughter of the Madda king and had three sons by him, the youngest of whom, Paṇḍuvāsudeva, became king of Sri Lanka.

Bhaddā Kāpilānī wife of Pippali-māṇava (Mahā-Kassapa), was the daughter of a Kosiya-gotta brahmin of Sāgala in the Madda country. Men went there in search of a wife for him because it was famed for the beauty of its women (Maddaratthaṃ nāma itthāgāro) (ThagA.ii.142; ThigA.68). Anojā, wife of Mahā-Kappina of Kukkuṭavatī, also came from the royal household of Madda (DhA.ii.116), as did Khemā, wife of Bimbisāra (ThigA.127).

The wife of a Cakkavattī comes either from Uttarakuru or from the royal family of Madda (MA.ii.950; DA.ii.626; KhA.173).

For the identification of Madda see Sāgala. Sāgala is identified with the modern Sialkot in the Punjab (Law, Geog. 53)